Tunnel Vision
by astropixie
Summary: [Complete] Harper is overworked as usual, and to add to his stress, he is having a little eyesight problem. Can he keep it hidden from the rest of the crew? Season one setting.


I wrote this a long, long time ago...it was a response to a plot bunny at Ex Isle. I just finished it, I found it on my computer and I was like, "Wow, it only needed another few paragraphs, I feel awful." And here it is.

Takes place sometime during season one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Andromeda. If I did, it would have been better.

* * *

It was midday and the ship was bustling as much as a ship of six people and an AI can bustle, especially with two people gone. Beka and Rev were out on a vacation excursion, which left Dylan, Rommie, Tyr, Trance and Harper alone.

And the little, hyperactive engineer was indeed alone, oblivious to all, deep in the bowels of the ship's innermost workings. He fixed and tinkered away, noises of metal on metal and nanowelding from his efforts echoing dismally through the giant chambers of the slipstream core.

Harper sighed deeply, running a hand through his dirty blond hair to spike it upward as he leaned back. The goggles he wore while working around sparking things always flattened his hair, making it feel unusually hot and heavy. He looked at all the delicate circuitry and machinery, at how he was coming along. It was a bit fuzzy when he was a meter away, leaning against the railing as he was, so he leaned in for a closer look. Yeah, another hour's work and he would be done. He checked his watch and saw with a groan that it was only one in the afternoon. He looked up at the panel of circuitry and noticed that it seemed a bit blurry again. In the early afternoon his eyes were already admitting defeat to sleep…

I must be getting old, he thought to himself. Then he smiled at his own mental joke and put his uncomfortable goggles back on, taking his nanowelder in hand once again.

Predictably, very predictably, them moment he was done fixing the blasted panels in the slip core, ready to go crash in his quarters, Dylan's voice sounded in the chamber.

_"Mr. Harper, report to Command."_

Harper pulled his goggles off once again, groaning. "Why?" he shouted, his voice repeating itself several more times in the metal hall.

_"Because I need your expertise, Harper,"_ Dylan's patient tone responded.

"Now?" Harper asked petulantly.

_"Yes, Harper. Now would be nice,"_ Dylan's distorted voice commanded sardonically. Harper threw his nanowelding goggles down into his toolbox and stomped off to Command, feeling more and more tired with every clomping booted step.

"Do this, Mr. Harper. Fix that, Mr. Harper. Quickly, Harper! Harper, you are so annoying. Fix that, Harper," he grumbled to himself as he strode through the identical hexagonal corridors. "My genius is wasted on house calls."

Rommie's holographic manifestation popped up a few yards in front of him, crossing her arms in a very tolerant way.

"You don't even know what Dylan wants," Rommie's computerized voice chided him. "It might be the genius you so discreetly refer to."

"Oh yeah?" Harper asked as he passed her and turned another shiny-walled corner. She appeared another few yards ahead of him. "Is it?"

"This time? No," Rommie said calmly. Harper waved an exclamatory hand. "See?"

"Stop whining, Harper," Rommie finished, disappearing. Harper snorted as he rounded the last corner on the route to Command.

As he entered the command deck, exhausted, he was greeted with a terse, "Glad you could join us, Mr. Harper."

"I'll bet you are," Harper told Dylan as he passed him, going to his post. "What can I do for you, Boss?"

Rommie's holographic self materialized near the multiple viewscreens in the front of the deck.

"We found a debris field from an old battle site," she said, inclining her head towards the accommodating screen. "It is approximately ten years old, but we still need parts after that last battle."

"Which I know very well," Harper muttered to himself.

"Is there anything that can be salvaged that you can see?" Dylan asked.

"Ah…." Harper looked up at the screen from his console. The images of floating machinery in space were a bit too fuzzy to tell. He squinted, then said, "Rommie, could you get a closer shot of the old-uh-medical ship there?"

"There are no medical ships in the field, Harper," Rommie replied coolly.

"Ah-right," Harper said sheepishly. "Rommie, how about a diagnostic on the resolution of the front viewscreen?"

"Crystal clear as usual," Rommie said tersely, a bit offended.

"Alright then, magnify the bottom left quadrant."

The chunks of the mostly-intact ship came closer, and now Harper could tell that it was in fact a courier ship. He blinked, and then said "Never mind, I don't think we need anything from that…"

"Mr. Harper, are you feeling okay?" Dylan inquired from behind him. Harper looked around at him and said, "Actually, I'm, well, a bit tired. Not that tired, though."

"Well, I called you down here because I thought you could do this faster than me," Dylan said with typical Dylan sarcasm. "If you're not feeling well, then you can..."

"Wait." Harper interrupted, shaking his head. "You did call me down for my awesome genius? My breathtaking greatness?"

Dylan couldn't resist a smile at his engineer's antics. "More or less."

Harper turned to Rommie's holographic self. "You lied to me," he said accusingly.

"I couldn't resist," she said, shimmering away.

* * *

Courier ship, medical ship….there's not that much difference, is there? Harper thought to himself. The resolution of the screen had to be off, he mused, no matter how huffily Rommie had told him it was not. He would have to check it out himself…but not before returning to his quarters for a nap.

He had just hopped down the ladder connecting decks when a bubbly voice said from behind him, "Hi Harper! What are you doing?"

Harper's exhaustion was shot to hell as he yelped and whirled around, heart in his throat. "Trance!" he shouted, breathing heavily.

"Yes, Harper?" the cute purple girl responded, smiling with a sweetness that was incomprehensible to him most of the time.

"I…uh…" He was about to tell her off for scaring him, but she tilted her head to the side, still smiling prettily at him. He sighed. "Hi, Trance."

"Hi, Harper. What are you doing?" Trance smiled anew. It was funny how she did that. It was like she would have a bright smile on her face and wear it for a few moments, and the get a new bright smile when the other faded slightly.

"I'm just heading to my quarters," Harper told her, walking off that way. His tiredness had returned after the adrenalin wore off. He needed a Sparky. "What are you doing, my purple, tailed babe?"

"Oh…just walking around. Hey, can I show you something?" She followed him, a sparkly purple shadow.

"Trance, I've been up for the past 26 hours straight fixing the whole damn ship!" Harper ranted in frustration. "I just want to kick back and crash."

Trance frowned, thinking silently for a moment. Then she said, "Harper, why would you want the ship you've been fixing for twenty-six hours to crash? Wouldn't you want it to be happy for just a little while before you have to fix it again? I mean, if you spend so much time fixing it in the first place, then.."

"Trance!" Harper interrupted loudly, rubbing his forehead, "I meant, kick back and sleep."

"Oh," Trance said in a childlike tone of comprehension. "Then why didn't you just say so?"

Harper mouthed soundlessly for a moment before saying, "It's an expression."

"Oh, okay." Trance smiled brightly at him once again. "Can I show you something?"

Harper stopped walking to stare into her pixie-like face. She giggled.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked innocently.

He shook his head. "Fine. What do you want to show me?"

Trance grabbed his hand and dragged him off in the opposite direction of his quarters while saying, "Great! It's so wonderful, I'm sure you'll love it. It's just this way, up a few decks. Isn't it funny how the levels are called decks? I think they should be called floors. Or levels, maybe…"

Harper allowed himself to be dragged up several "levels," listening with a dazed, inattentive mind to Trance's continual babble. Trance's babble, no matter how inane, always gave him something to think about, usually in the context of language, or general "why" questions. Levels versus decks, who versus whom, cake versus pie…talking to her just always raised questions. None of the important ones would be answered, though.

Once in hydroponics, the destination Harper had suspected all along, as it was Trance's dwelling place on board the massive ship, she stopped her babble and started a new set of babble.

"I've been working really hard at this for a long time, and it's done now and it's really special," she said in one breath, now dragging him to the back of the garden-filled room. "Here, here it is! Look up, at the top of the wall! Isn't it great?"

Harper looked up the wall in front of him, his eyes tracking the path of a creeping vine, until it reached the ceiling, about thirty feet high. The vine became very fuzzy up there.

"Well?" Trance asked in her perpetually happy voice.

"Um…well what?" Harper asked, confused.

"The flower on top, silly!"

"Oh, that!" Harper laughed uneasily. He squinted, trying to see a lower on top of the vine. If he tilted his head just a bit to the right, he could just make out a splash of blue against the green. "That, well, it's so beautiful that words can't describe it. Kind of like you, my purple babe."

He looked back over at Trance, who was giving him a calculating look, as if she didn't believe him. Harper shifted on his feet uncomfortably. Then Trance said in a sardonic tone, "Harper?"

"Yes, Trance?"

"That's not a pretty flower. It's pretty in its own individual way, but by your standards of what's pretty, that's not pretty. That's why I thought you'd like it, I made it a little weird," Trance said. "Can you even see it?"

"Yes." Harper said instantly. "It's blue. And for your information, I think it's pretty."

"It has teeth, Seamus," she told him pointedly.

"Pretty teeth, though!"

* * *

_Well, that had been awkward_, Harper thought to himself as he took his leave of Trance and her mutant carnivorous flower. Trance must have been lying to him, or something, he could see teeth on flowers….that would be something to see, actually. But he couldn't, for some reason. And he hadn't been able to correctly identify a courier ship in a debris field, either.

_Freakin' inconceivable_, the little commenting voice in his head said unhelpfully.

So, things he viewed at a distance weren't as clear as normal. Was it….was he having trouble seeing? Obviously. But how long had this been going on? Did he need glasses?

_No, no, I'm just tired_, he thought once again. That had to be it. Weak immune system, yes, weak physique, yes, short, yes….but blind? Not Seamus Z Harper.

Now, free of any sparkly purple shadows, he made his way to his quarters to remedy the situation. He had, in fact, just peeled off his boots and was collapsing into his bed when-

_"Harper!"_

Harper missed the bed, landing with a loud "thump" on the cold metallic floor littered with empty Sparky cola cans.

"What?" He shouted back at Tyr's perpetually irate voice from his position on the floor.

_"Deck 53's environmental systems are malfunctioning!"_ Tyr's voice returned.

"Then tell that to Trance!" Harper grimaced, pulling a sticky Sparky can from his black t-shirt in disgust. He threw it aside and lay down more carefully this time, blue (and completely healthy) eyes surveying the ceiling, drooping unwillingly as Tyr ranted.

_"That purple…"_ Tyr paused, restraining himself, it seemed. _"Trance is the one who caused it."_

There was silence in Harper's quarters and over the comm.

_"So get down here and fix the problem, boy, because it's your job."_

More silence ensued.

_"Are you listening to me?"_

Unfortunately for Tyr, Harper had already fallen asleep, fully clothed and sticky with caffeinated beverage.

* * *

Harper cheerily whistled his favorite Irish tune, "There's Whiskey in the Jar," while nanowelding a banana to a Sparky can. Dylan had told him to do so for some reason, something to do with a pet store. He sat back to admire his work for a moment, before assembling the next part, which would involve a toaster.

He was just taking the toaster out of its watery container when he heard a loud crash from outside the machine shop. He dropped the dripping contraption onto his project accidentally, cursed, then ran into the corridor to see what the noise had been.

Trance waved energetically from the back of a purple horse as they galloped by. "Let's go surfing!" she shouted at him. Harper ran after her, tearing off his working clothes as he went, so at the edge of the water he was clad in his swimming suit. The wind blew his blond hair back, and the pulsing waves ran over his bare feet in a cooling massage. He looked around for Trance, and for his board.

They weren't anywhere! The sunny beach was completely empty. Thinking that they might be in the water already, Harper dived in to search there. He swam through the cool sea for a very long time, coming up to the surface once in a while to search for Trance. But she was gone.

The cold sea grew hot! Harper watched with wide eyes as the saltwater around him began boiling. He frantically tried to reach the distant shore, but it was too late everything went black.

He heard a roar. It started slow and distant, an echoing, empty shriek, like somebody being tortured. It grew louder, coming closer, growling, banging...Harper flailed about in the scalding water, screaming, knowing what was coming...he fell! Through blackness and cold...and hit the deck of his quarters, still screaming.

Harper took a couple of deep breaths after establishing his bearings. No boiling cold ocean, no screaming Magog in the distance, no Trances riding purple horses. It was his messy, smelly and completely disorganized living space onboard the Andromeda.

"Crazy dream for a crazy genius," he said to himself, getting up slowly. His back cracked, protesting on behalf of his un-rested body as he willed it to move.

As he sat upon his bed, pulling his boots back on to resume the never-ending repairs on the supposed great, high-tech warship of the line, he heard a noise. _Probably the high-tech ship,_ Harper thought wryly to himself. Of course, in his experience, it was the high tech things that required the most maintenance, and the low tech things that were self-sufficient.

Harper sat up straight once his boots were on and listened closely for the noise, wondering if it would repeat itself.

_Clang!_

Harper sighed. It sounded like a problem with the environmental systems, which Tyr had complained about earlier. He spent a few confused, drowsy minutes looking around for his tool belt before peering into his bathroom mirror and seeing it around his waist already.

_I look like calimelon pulp_, he thought. Indeed, this was so. His hair was lying flat and greasy, and his normally smooth young face was pasty and unshaven. The bags under his eyes resembled the blue blob of Trance's flower. And he hadn't even changed for the last, what, thirty, forty hours? How long had he been sleeping?

_Clang!_

"All right! I'm coming!" Harper shouted into his mirror. He splashed some water on his haggard face, made a mental promise to himself to grab some coffee, and headed to the entranceway of his quarters. It slid open-

Mutant banana-welded Sparky toaster Magog creature! It was on fire, screaming its bloodcurdling cry. Harper yelped in startled horror and backed away, reaching for the gun at his side...which was gone, of course. He backed away and away...watching in silenced terror as it came closer and closer...growing dimmer and more distant at the same time. The room grew dark, the creature a shadow, moving hardly at all. But through the murk the thing still roared, loud and nearby. Harper blinked and wiped his eyes feverishly, looking around the gloom for the thing...

Blackness! Where were the lights? Was he dying? Did it get him?

_Clang!_

"Help!" he shouted, "I can't see! Help me! Someone please help me...!"

_Clang!_

Harper's eyes snapped open. He grabbed for his gun, conveniently located on his bedside table (due to his well-earned, well-established paranoia) and pointed it about haphazardly, nearly hyperventilating before he came to his senses. This time, he was definitely in the real world, awoken to the sounds of his own screams and the genuine clanking to be heard in the bulkheads. There were no flaming Magog toasters, and no Trances riding purple horses.

And I can see perfectly fine, he thought reassuringly to himself, looking around his quarters as he lowered his gun. No blackness, no murk, not the slightest bit of fuzziness.

Well…

That empty can in the corner wasn't exactly a neon sign, but…but it's in the corner, Harper thought. It's a full seven feet away. He shouldn't be able to see that, no, it's too far…

_"Harper, get your butt down to the Maru."_

Harper jumped and yelped, raising the gun again before identifying the voice and its purpose.

"Hey Boss, you're back!" Harper said cheerfully, concentrating on slowing his breathing down.

_"Too much coffee, Seamus?"_ Beka asked him sweetly, in response to his earlier outburst.

"Not enough, actually. Coffee is to me as chicks are to Dylan," Harper said in his hyperactive tone. Talking to Beka usually hushed his nerves. She had a calming effect on him, like a mother, or some other protective force. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his lamp.

_"And…what does that mean?"_ He could hear her smirking.

"I live off of it, of course. It is my soul-soothing life force."

_"You're just jealous."_

"So?"

_"So get your ass down to the Maru, sleepyhead,"_ she randomly repeated her earlier order, for lack of a better reply, it seemed.

"Wha-why?" Harper whined to the lamp on his table. He felt both wiped and overwhelmingly energetic at the same time, his personal meter of total exhaustion.

_"So that we can salvage some parts from this field were sitting in so we can fix this stupid ship so we can get the hell out of here."_

"So 'we' can fix this stupid ship?" Harper raised his eyebrows at his inanimate companion, regretting the words "stupid" and "ship" in association with Rommie as he said them.

_"So you can,"_ she corrected herself. _"Now hurry up."_ And Beka cut communications.

Harper continued staring at the little light in a limp, comatose state for a few moments, before realizing that should be getting down to the Maru.

* * *

"Harper, pay attention!"

Harper looked up from the Maru's navigation console wearily. "What?"

Beka deftly maneuvered her faithful ship, weaving it around and through the debris of once-proud war-machines. Whenever she had done this in the past, scavenging among their bones for the Maru's health, it never escaped her for a moment that someday her ship may be the skeleton and someone else could be the buzzard.

She glanced back at her tiny engineer. He looked like hell, she had to admit to herself. As his chin slid out of his cupped hand and onto the console with a loud thump, she winced and immediately regretted forcing him out on this errand.

"Don't fall asleep just yet, Seamus," she said a bit more gently.

"I'm good! I'm awake," Harper smiled wanly at her, head propped up upon a fist. She shook her head as she turned around in her pilot's chair to face the field once again. "Sure you are," she rejoined. "Just don't drool on my ship, okay?"

"Oh, Boss, if you only knew what I've done on your ship," came the quick-witted reply. Beka's eyebrows shot up about two inches as she shook her head once again, saying mostly to herself, "Don't ask, Valentine… just don't ask…."

The two spent a tense afternoon (or was it morning? Evening? Harper was lost) salvaging parts from the ships in the debris field. Harper would point out a ship that might have good parts, Beka would fly to it, and then Harper would change his mind. By Harper's fifth identification mistake, Beka was beginning to have an idea what was going on.

"Harper?" she called, slowing the Maru down before she climbed out of the pilot's chair.

"Yeah, Boss?" Harper appeared at her side.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Harper backed away, automatically smirking in defense. Beka held her hand up so Harper could see, displaying a few ringed fingers.

"Are we counting thumbs here, Boss?"

"My thumb is not up, Harper," she said flatly.

"Well, yeah. I knew that," Harper said easily.

"Harper…."

"What?" Harper backed away as Beka walked toward him, cornering him by the navigation console.

"You can't see very well, can you?" Beka asked bluntly.

"What?" Harper said. "Of course I can see well. I'm the best see-er in three galaxies, babe. I can see from here to that medical ship out there, I can see so well."

"Harper," Beka said slowly, "there are no medical ships in the field."

Harper slumped his shoulders in defeat. Beka ruffled his hair affectionately. "Let's get back to the Andromeda and get those baby blues checked out."

* * *

A few days later, Harper was back at work in the slipstream core. He finished wiring one panel and closed it, tearing his safety goggles off triumphantly. His new glasses came off as well in his haste.

"Crap!" Harper shouted, reaching out to catch them in vain.

"Drop something?" a sugary voice inquired from behind him. Harper whirled.

"Trance?" he asked stupidly. "When did you get here?"

"Sometime, I'm sure," Trance answered, smiling. "Here you go."

His glasses were in her pointed tail's grasp. He took them and put them on, feeling self-conscious. Trance giggled.

"I like your glasses, Harper," she said. "You look even smarter with them on."

Harper stood up and slid his tools back into his belt. He slid an arm around Trance's shoulders as they walked out of the core together. "Well, that's good enough for me. Straight from the mouth of the sparkly purple babe."


End file.
